


Mister Jane Doe

by bug69



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gender Dysphoria, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, angsty as hell but ends happily, he loves his team!!, soldier is babpey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 16:21:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20343073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bug69/pseuds/bug69
Summary: Jane Doe was his name. It wasn't a woman's name, because it belonged to him, and he isn't a woman. But he always added 'Mister' in front, just to make sure people knew.A Trans Soldier fic, detailing his gender dysphoria and PTSD surrounding abuse. Scout is also trans in this.Has a happy ending though, don't worry.





	Mister Jane Doe

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE READ! I am not trans. Please please tell me if I got anything wrong and I will try my best to correct the error. I really hope I wrote this okay but obviously I don't know the trans experience, and I will be happy to hear and and all criticisms of my work. Thank you so much.

Jane Doe was his name. It wasn't a woman's name, because it belonged to him, and he isn't a woman. But he always added 'Mister' in front, just to make sure people knew.

He had thought about changing it, all those years ago, but had decided against it. Jane was his name. If someone had a problem with it, he could easily snap their neck, just as he had done in the past. It would be confusing to be called anything else, and Jane always found confusing situations hard to navigate. So he kept it simple. 

He is Jane. He is a man. Thus, Jane is a man's name. Yeah, he felt better already. 

It was hard at first, with his family and all, and teenage years aren't too happy anyway, from what he'd been told. So at least Jane wasn't the only one. But it certainly wasn't the best time of his life, and at Forty-five Jane was hoping that it'd all soon fade from memory. 

His father was a military man, like himself- fought in the world war before Jane was born (that one with the weird European prince with black hands), for as little as America did, then raised four all-American children in the Kansas countryside (not as countryside-y as Engie, he never milked any cows or slaughtered any pigs, but the dustbowl was huge and he remembered it clear as day). Two sisters and a brother, and Jane. He was a middle child, which wasn't too bad of a spot to be in. 

He remembered his sisters soft voice- Betty, it must have been- a few years older and many years wiser. Jane was crying in front of the mirror again. She said that most young people feel awful when their body starts to change but Jane had never seen her crying when Momma made her wear a dress, or Mary either. But she was younger. 

The worst part was Robert. He was the youngest of them all- Jane could still remember the announcement that he had popped out, his father's face swelled and glowing with joy (and maybe he was misremembering, but Jane sometimes remembered the spark of a happy tear in the stern man's eye). 

He was the only sibling who'd never had to wear those stuffy, tight dresses, who never had to worry about husbands and cooking, who their father would teach about the military. Robert would never have to grow breasts, he would never feel the mind-numbing, forehead-sweating pain Jane felt every month. He would join the military. He would make their father and their country beam with pride. 

Robert would never have to be a woman. And Jane hated him for it. 

Now that Jane was older, he could barely remember his face. Nor Betty's, nor Mary's. None of them had spoken to him since he left. He didn't know if they hated him, or if they just didn't know where he was. 

Oh God, when he left. Jane didn't want to think about that. So he didn't. 

What came after that? Trying to join the military. Being found out. Being refused. Being a civilian. 

Yeah, he wasn't too keen on thinking about that, either. So he didn't. 

After that was Poland. Now, that was good. Best time of his life, probably, though it's better now. 

The war had started five years before he had turned seventeen in 1944, but he flew up as soon as he could. He had his own property, a shack deep in the countryside- just like his Pa- and whenever anyone came 'round to interfere they would get their stupid Nazi brains kicked out. And that was how Jane lived. He was a Soldier. Just like Robert, and just like his Pa. And he was kicking Nazi ass. 

Living in Poland was easier. He was alone, and he chose not to have any mirrors in his home, which was nice. His helmet, that he had bought in the nearby town, hid most of his face from any nosy passerbys. His oversized jackets and jumpers greatly distorted his figure. Nobody would suspect a thing. And if they were suspecting, it was in a non-American language, and anything said in non-American just didn't matter, did it? 

He still cried sometimes, though he didn't have a mirror to cry in front of. But he would look down at his body, he would see his worst nightmare, he would see a body that wasn't a man's, that wasn't his. Oh Lord, it made his stomach ache and his heart burn and he just wanted to claw himself out. 

So he just decided to close his eyes while getting undressed, no matter how many lamps he broke. 

Jane came of age there, in those bloodstained plains, in that barren (yet homely) shack. He caught wind of the war ending- though a few years too late, now a man of twenty-three - and he paid for his flight back to the motherland. Then, Jane thought, for all his hard work, he would award himself some nice medals. So he made some. 

And then it was over, and Jane wasn't too sure what to do with himself. 

It was difficult, getting hired. He couldn't read too good and he certainly couldn't write. Once he tried to struggle through this Chinese book, "The Art of War", Sun Tzu, but he learnt the hard way that reading was a lot more challenging than the other people in the library made it out to be. He tried to ask the lady at the counter for help, but she called him "Ma'am" and looked scared when he got angry. He was MISTER Jane Doe. How hard was that to understand? And then he was escorted out of the building. 

So, writing a resume was off of the table. Instead, he moved to Kansas City, and not the nice part. 

It was dark there, dingy in his little apartment, and every night he would go down to an alleyway. People knew where to find him. Some man would give him a photo, and an address, preferably, and a wad of cash. Jane would seek out the man in the picture and beat the living daylights out of them. Usually they tried to fight back at first, and it was hard not to kill them, but he always got it done. And then he'd come back to the first man, accept another wad of cash, and go home. 

It was simple. It was what he did best. Living around lots of people wasn't too fun, and he never made any friends, but sometimes, when he was on his way home at night, Jane would catch a glimpse of one of those tiny creatures. Like cats, only grey, with beautiful rings and markings, digging through the trash. Raccoons, he later found out. Those little critters always made his day. 

It wasn't always good, though. One time, he was taking a job (because there'll never be a shortage of men who want other men beaten to a bloody pulp), and the man, just about to hand out the green stack, paused. He propositioned Jane, a glint of mischievous boyhood in his eye, though he was a man of nearly forty. Jane felt himself clench with jealousy. So much that he could barely process what the other man had said. 

He repeated himself. And Jane thought. 

He had never slept with somebody before. There was one time when he was fifteen, a boy in the year above him, kissing in his parents barn. Jane had thought they were friends. But boys don't make friends with people they think look like girls and invite them to their barns. Betty had asked Jane what he had expected, after the boy came crying to Jane's Momma with a black eye (he had reached for his breast. Jane didn't like that.) 

There was another time, in Poland, though he tried to stay away from people at all costs. This time a woman, soft, small. He didn't really like that. But she was kind, though he didn't understand her non-American language, and when she kissed him it had been like apple pie, which is the most American taste in the world, so he kept going. But he supposed it didn't really count as sex (Momma had told him that sex is when a man and a woman make a baby, and while they were a man and a woman, there was no way he could have made a baby, and that made Jane's heart ache, so he didn't think about it).

Jane hadnt realised, at the time, that other men don't take too kindly to waiting. So the man had grabbed his arm, and Jane felt himself freeze. Something happened, something that had only ever happened once before in Poland, something that only usually happened in his nightmares, that had somehow followed him to the hours of the day. 

He saw his father. When Jane was sixteen. And he told his father the truth. That Jane is a man. That he was joining the military. And when his father had yelled and shouted and screamed and his mother had cried and Betty had pulled and the damage was far far more than the usual slap to the wrist and he couldn't move his arm and his wrist was pointing out wrong and his nose was bloodied and cracked but he had to run out of there. 

Jane couldn't help it. His body moved on its own, shaking, trembling, yelling, punching the man in front of him in the face. Hands on his neck. Pulling. Just like the nazis, but this time he didn't enjoy it. This time he was being suffocated and all he could see was his father's face and how his home used to smell and the sickening taste of the air and the thickness of the atmosphere as Jane tactlessly spoke the truth. He never did have much tact. And snot was running down his face and he was drooling and trembling and scared and so so alone. 

He was lucky that day, an old lady had seen him. She called him "ma'am" but she held his large, calloused, shaking hand and spoke to him softly and he didn't have time to be mad at her. The feeling of her frail hands on his skin grounded him. He wasn't at home. He was here, in this alleyway. It smelled like garbage. It was dark. His mouth tasted like metallic blood, where the man must have gotten a swing in. He was here, September 1965. He was thirtyeight. His name was Mister Jane Doe. He just needed to sleep.

Unfortunately that would have to wait. She had seen the body and had called the police, and Jane spent the next few months in jail, awaiting his trial. 

He tried to tell them he was a man, but they sent him to a women's institution anyway. Jane didn't like police. And he didn't like jail. The clothes hugged his figure. He wasn't allowed to wear his helmet. They made him come out and be near people, women who acted he was a woman, too. He wasn't. He wasn't supposed to be here. 

He had those breakdowns more and more in that dindgy cell. People would touch him and barge past him and more often would Jane find himself going deadly silent and just remembering. Sometimes they were frightening and intense, like he was there, like the night with the man and the old woman, but sometimes they were calm. Eerie. He didn't make a noise. He just sat back and he wasn't in his body anymore, he was somewhere else, he was in his family kitchen. And it would start over again. 

Jane would have gone mad if Miss Pauling hadn't shown up. Now that he's stuck here remembering, he realises she tends to do that a lot. He should send her a card. 

She had offered to get him out of there, to pay his bail, so long as he fought in their war. As a soldier. 

Well, she didn't need to ask him twice. He was in New Mexico the minute she opened her mouth. 

Miss Pauling was kind to Jane. She was polite, called him "Mister Doe" in that soft voice of hers, and it made Jane smile. She was short, calm. When Jane asked stupid questions, as he knows he sometimes does, she just smiled and answered, but never like he was a child. And she never grabbed him. That was important. 

She told him some things about the war they were fighting, on the way there. How his new name was Soldier (Jane smiled at that), how there were eight other men (Jane frowned at that. A small army), how they could come back to life after dying because of this Australi-whatever technology. UnAmerican. He didn't really care. 

Jane was a soldier now. He was THE Soldier now. And that's when he met the others. 

Engineer was the nicest, always was, from the day they first met, to the present. He's a short man, shorter than Jane- no, Soldier- and spoke in a way that was so American that even Soldier had a hard time getting it. Especially those funny sayings. "Fixin' to". "All hat and no cattle". Soldier needed time to work them out. 

Spy was a weird one. French. Where even was France? All he knew about it was that they made bread there, and that Frenchies were cowards who spoke funny, which made the country sound pretty useless. But Spy definitely wasn't. He could do all this sneaking around, and he came up with great plans, ideas that Soldier never would have thought of. And he helped explain to Soldier what " with extreme prejudice" meant, after an embarrassing run in with the BLU Heavy. 

Medic was amazing. The man had been instantly captivated by whatever Soldier had to say about his situation, scribbling down in his scratchy notebook, birds cooing blankly at the broad man in front of them. The German explained something to him, about how Soldier was feeling, but in fancier terms, and all he could do was nod and pretend to know what the taller man was talking about. He looked excited.

The doctor had started injecting him with this chemical name he could never pronounce, but he knew it began with a T. Finding an excuse to be visiting the Medic so much was difficult, and Soldier remembered the Heavy giving him some suspicious, almost angry looks as he scrambled hastily out of the room on time for his appointment, claiming that he needed to do his daily pushups in the infirmary, or that he needed to check Medic was doing /his/ daily pushups in the infirmary, but those soon stopped. And it became normal. Routine. 

What never became routine, however, was the remembering. It never happened in battle; when men shot him down, beat him to death, set him on fire over and over, Soldier didn't feel a thing, at least not emotionally. In fact, it was almost thrilling. 

What caught him off guard, was out of battle, in the common grounds, setting up for dinner and the Pyro knocks into him just a bit too hard, or the Heavy claps him on the back in a way that's supposed to be friendly but just ends up striking fear into his soul. And then he's there. In the family kitchen. And he looks up from the dishes and he says, he says to his father, "Pa, I have something to tell you," and he says the rest and then he feels the glare, the glare that burns into his skin-

Demo had to calm him down. He was screaming, that time, yelling and panting and when he came to his senses he could hear that he other room was silenced, speaking only in hushed, concerned whispers. The Soldier's face burned with embarrassment. 

He just thanked God Medic didn't catch wind of it. 

But whatever the German was pumping into him was working. Soldier quickly noticed changes in his body, from the hair rapidly filling the skin on his legs, to the strange-ness happening down under. His voice started to change, though it was so slow he barely noticed (other than some awkward moments of mid-battle war cry voice-cracks). His bleeding stopped too, which was a relief.

But Soldier often found himself staring. Not in the scary way, where he would start to remember his Pa, but not in a happy way either. He would stare at his teammates. They were all so... Male. In ways that he wasnt. Heavy was enormous, thick limbs and calloused hands, his layers of soft fat laying over rocky muscle. Soldier looked down at his own hands. They were dainty in comparison. 

And Sniper. He would always have this shadow on his face, a remandant of where he must have shaved that morning in his van. Soldier would stare and scratch his own peachy chin. No hair. Medic said it might come, that he had to have patience, but he'd had patience for forty years. He wanted it now. 

Medic was right, though. It came, in time, and Soldier had never been happier. He didn't shave for a good six months, watching happily as thin, blonde hairs appeared on his chin. It wasnt too impressive, if he was honest, but he was so proud of that little beard and it broke his heart to shave it. And yet, there was something inheritently masculine in joining spy every morning to shave. So it was a fair trade-off. 

Betty had been wrong, all those years ago. His body was changing, and he'd never felt happier. This was better than Poland. This was better than that car drive with Miss Pauling. Sometimes, he'd even look in the mirror (lifting his helmet a little, just enough to see), and he'd smile. 

He couldn't remember doing that since he was small. And in the height of his confidence, was when Soldier started talking to Tavish DeGroot. 

Tavish was a lot like Miss Pauling, in his politeness. The Scot was drunk a lot of the time, though Soldier didn't mind too much- it made him funny to listen to. He didn't even realise it was a problem until many years later. 

But in the meantime he listened to Solider, and Soldier listened to him, and they found they had a lot in common. They liked gravel. I mean, neither of them disliked gravel. Can you like gravel? Soldier didn't know but he took him to the gravel museum anyway. He also took him to the eyeball museum, which didn't sit so well (it sounded like a good idea in his head). 

One time, they were sat on a flat roof, drinking beers. It was the evening, and the two men watched the glowing sky as the sun slowly fled from the horizon, burning the sky in tones of purple and orange. Soldier looked at Demo. He was grinning. 

"M'names Tavish," Demo had said. Soldier had always liked his accent, though its unAmerican-ness messed with his head a little. There was a pause that hung comfortably in the air. Soldier took another sip of beer. 

"Miss Pauling said we weren't supposed to call each other by our names."

"You don't have to call me it, lad. I just wanted you to know, aye?" Demoman always called him lad, as if he were a young boy. Sometimes he felt like a child next to the Scotsman- he was so smart. There was another pause. 

"Well. I'm Mister Jane Doe."

Tavish nodded. Jane knew what he was thinking. "It's not a girls name. It's my name. And I'm a man. Thus it is a man's name."

"Aye, I know."

And then the silence sat comfortably once again, settling like the sun in the distance as they sipped their beers. Jane didn't think he'd ever felt a moment so tender, so unlike from the environment they were in, from the people they were. But it was nice. Sometimes, Jane wondered if he loved Tavish. But he didn't think he knew what love was, and that's too difficult to get into. A big question. Complicated. 

He had enough going on. He had done for the past five years. 

Though, Medic told him that after many years of those injections, not much more would happen. It was disappointing. He felt better, things had certainly changed and now, when he went out to Teufort, nobody would call him "ma'am". But things still felt wrong. And that's when it all dipped down again. 

Why wasn't he satisfied? Would anything ever be good enough? COULD he ask for anymore, or was this just it? Soldier looked down at his breasts. He hadn't thought about them in a long time. He hadn't needed to. But Spy didn't have breasts. And Engineer didn't have breasts. Men didn't have breasts. But he was a man. 

For the first time in a long time, Soldier cried in front of a mirror. 

And then he heard a knock on the door. 

"Do NOT even think about touching that door-handle, private!" Soldier boomed, hoping, praying that the tears weren't evident in his voice. 

"Yeah, whatever, guy. I'm comin' in."

Oh sweet Lord. Scout. The one member of the team he knew for a fact would laugh at him in this state. Soldier grasped at thin bedsheets, desperately wiping at his face, knocking off his helmet. Oh god, he was topless. He was fucking topless! He threw the bedsheet over himself. Oh no. Oh no oh no. The door opened. 

Scout stared. And then he sat down next to him. "So yeah. I can hear your crying, or whatever. The walls are paper thin."

Soldier didn't say anything. He didn't know what Scout was thinking. He couldn't read people like that. 

"And uh. This is kinda hard for me to say, yeah? So you better not tell nobody, or I'll blow your fucking brains out, helmet or nah."

"You couldn't do that to me. And I would still have your secret after respawn."

"Yeah yeah, didn't ask. Now shut up and listen."

Soldier shut up.

"I'm like you."

"You're a soldier? You're not. That's a bold-faced lie, how dare you disrespect the army like that? Do you want to see my medals? I EARNED them in the heat of b-"

"God! I don't care about your medals, you nutcase, no!" Scout yelled in exasperation. Soldier flinched. He didn't like being called a nutcase. "Nah, I'm not a soldier. I'm like... Like you. Like, I see Medic all the time to get hormones pumped into me, even though I'm scared half-to-death 'a needles, and I spend every night inspecting my body in the mirror like I'm some sorta painting that people like to analyse, like it actually means something and it ain't just some triangles, you get me? And I'm different to all the other guys here cos I was born different, but you were born the same kinda different, okay? So you shouldn't be sad. Okay. Thats all I wanted to say." Soldier nodded, slowly. Sometimes Scout talked too fast for him to understand, but this time he got it. 

The younger man looked a little bashful, avoiding eye contact. Soldier understood that, avoiding harsh gazes was a major upside to wearing his helmet. He never liked to see how people looked at him. 

"Well. Thank you, private." 

"Whatever. Just don't tell anyone, yeah?" 

Soldier nodded, and then he was gone. To this day, he wonders about why Scout would have told him. They were never perticularly close. But sometimes Scout will sit with him and it'll make things a lot easier. Easier than it used to be. He stares a lot less. 

He later learnt that Scout never got that surgery, the one that Soldier had gotten. When he had asked why, Scout just shrugged. But he seemed happy enough. He was smiling. With that stupid bucktooth. And stupid as it was, it made Soldier's heart warm.

Soldier thinks that must have been how he manged to climb that mountain in Siberia all those years later. Scout was next to him, speaking words Soldier either couldn't understand, or that didn't have any meanining in general: stuff about his Ma, and how cold he was, and about hotdog costumes, and then about how cold he was again and how that Russian lady better not have had coats or he's going to rip him a new asshole then shove his boot up it, Jane-y boy. That made him laugh. Battling bears while naked and covered in honey was easier with someone who knew about his situation. Though, while you're naked and covered in honey and fighting bears, you don't have much time to think about the people watching.

When Heavy looked at him, and Soldier knew he could see his specifically-placed scars and his- well, you know- and he knew Heavy was smart enough to work out what had happened, Soldier felt fear run up his spine (or maybe that was the cold, he was naked, afterall). The mammoth-of-a-man didn't say anything, didn't even nod. He just scowled and quietly informed the team that they had been fighting babies, and Soldier smiled as he cozied up in the snow to watch the fight.

Heavy had taken them back home, and that's when he had met her. Zhanna. The most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes upon. Soldier knew his memory wasn't too good, but he would always try to replay their first meeting in his head. He didn't know where he would be without it. 

The first thing they did was make love. She was taller than him, just as muscular, nothing like the soft woman from Poland, but somehow much more attractive. She displayed her strength in everything she did, from grabbing his arms and thrusting him into her bedroom (Soldier felt himself flinch. Not now), to her gaze, which pinned him in place no matter where he was or what he was doing. She was stronger than he could ever hope to be and she wasn't even trying. But she had a grace about her that reminded him of Lady Liberty. Or something like that. 

He hoped she wasn't disappointed. He still wonders it today, if he's enough for her, if she is underwhelmed. But she has not complained yet, and Zhanna is not the type to suffer in silence. But he still worries.

"Why can I not push you too hard, Honey-bear?" she had asked one night, laying in her cozy room. They had moved to America, his motherland, THE motherland, and surpringsly, domesticity suited them. Well, if you include neck snapping your neighbours in domesticity, which they did.

"What do you mean, son?" He asked, his arm around her, brushing over her silky hair. Oh, her hair. It was so long, it reminded him of that fairy tale.

"Misha says, 'Do not push your husband. He will yell.' What does this mean?" Zhanna looked up at him, her eyes pinning him to where he was, as they usually did. She is so strong, so strong. Jane didn't know how to reply, he couldn't match her. 

"I- I remember things, sometimes, love-maggot. And it's not fun memories of the war, and all my war friends, and earning medals. And.. And I-" Jane paused. He didn't know what to say. She was looking at him, dead in the eyes. This is why he wears a helmet. She was so beautiful. She made him so nervous.

"It's different," Jane said, a little quieter, still staring into the black expanse of her eyes (or were they brown?). "It's like I'm there. And I can feel it again."

"Of war?"

"No, I love war!" Jane said, snapping the sombre mood of the conversation with his usual passion. "War is great! War is-"

"Honey-maggot. If you do not wish to speak about memory, this is fine. But you do not have to stall." Zhanna murmured. Her voice was soft, now. Different to usual. But still her power lingered behind the words, and it brought Jane back.

"... I do not wish to speak on it."

"And that is fine," Zhanna said, and she gave him a kiss on the head, and Jane grinned. His heart fluttered.

And in that moment, he was Mister Jane Doe, in love with Zhanna Doe. Nothing more, nothing less.

**Author's Note:**

> As I said before, I don't have the trans experience and if I wrote this wrong or in an offensive way please don't be afraid to call me up on it.  
This story is mostly about his insecurities because that's what was most dramatic in terms of storytelling? If you think it would be appropriate to add some positive stuff as well I will ksndjd. Obviously being trans is nothing to be ashamed of but it's the 70s :(
> 
> I love trans soldier and I will stand by it until I die lmfao
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I really enjoyed writing this.


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